SCIENCEBROS
For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.
No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:
“You know! Boys will be boys!”
“He’s just going through a phase!”
“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”
“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”
“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”
I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”
She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.
It was so tempting.
He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.
She had to keep her building safe.
Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.
His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.
Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.
I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”
Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?
There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.
There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.
Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”
The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement.
So I’m 20 today
Ew I feel old
I’m officially out of my teens. So what. Am I an adult now? I don’t feel like an adult. I don’t feel grown up. Like hell I’d want to enter that world just yet
Today’s supposed to be a day of celebration. But maybe I’m a little sad. Its my birthday, I can be a little selfish right? A little childish?
So I’ll be a little sad, and just for tonight I’ll hug this soft and fluffy baby penguin as a substitute for something else
My brother texted me a few hours ago telling me to think of a Fathers day gift
…what am I supposed to get when he thinks everything is a waste of money? OTL
Whyyyyyy
What Kind of Asian Are You
My aunt posted this on facebook. Fuckin died almost
WHY IS THIS NOT VIRAL YET?
O.M.G.
OMGGGG. Watch this.
Necessary viewing.
asdfjk;l
I JUST WANNA KNOW MY GRAAAAADES
Possible projected grades aren’t bad so far though
I think I got a B+ in my ochem lab class, despite the craptasticness of that stupid final
92% Psyc60
91% Psyc134
84% in BICD100, maybe, it depends on how he ends up divvying up the points
I hate waiting for grades, it makes me nervous
—-
actually scratch that, I just saw my grade for Psyc60 and I got a perfect score on the final. So unless something goes horribly wrong with the final paper then I’ll finally have an A+ on my transcript. Finally
we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years to hunt and eat and live a certain way and now we all are forced to live in cement buildings and sit at ur job from 9-5 and u wonder why everyone seems to have a psychological disorder
*claps loudly and sobs*
Tumbling over the past year and a half has made me see the problems of gender roles that exist in media, but sometimes it gets to the point where I over analyze every single piece of television or film that I come across. (However this in no way means that I think feminist media criticism is wrong, or should be avoided!) Mostly I just over think everything.
This is awesome!
I’m so glad I’m not alone in my confusion. I’ve been over-thinking everything and it’s starting to annoy me.
